Children of Virtue and Vengeance

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2019

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-15

Chapters 16-29

Chapters 30-42

Chapters 43-57

Chapters 58-81

Chapter 82-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

The Bronze Coin

In the first novel, Inan regularly fidgets with a piece from a board game that he stole from his father. When Zélie reveals to him that it is majacite, he throws it away, thereby severing his tie to his father. In return, she gives him a bronze coin, which Ojore returns to him in this novel. He thinks back to how Zélie told him that it is “something [he] can hold on to without killing [him]self” (97). After Inan gets the coin back, he often plays with it during war council or when he must make an important decision. For Inan, it symbolizes his connection to Zélie and the love he still holds for her. Unable to get rid of it, he not only holds on to it but also uses it to ground himself when dealing with the war. The fact that it replaces the piece from his father’s board game shows Inan’s growth and development, as he has learned to abandon his father’s hatred of the maji and instead understand them through Zélie’s help.

At the conclusion of the novel, he gives the coin back to Zélie in a letter. Zélie is shocked to learn that he kept it but in turn takes it for herself and fashions it into a necklace. As she debates whether to kill Inan or not, she can feel the coin on the chain “burning” around her neck. The fact that Inan gave up the coin shows that he is finally willing to let go of his connection to Zélie; he is ready to sacrifice his life for her to bring down the monarchy. Now, as Zélie has it around her neck, it conveys the theme of Love Versus Duty. Whether she loves Inan anymore or not is unclear at the end of the novel. Regardless, she will have a reminder around her neck of the love that she once had—and a reminder that love and duty can coexist as she continues to lead Orïsha.

Scars

Physical scars are present on several characters and symbolize the emotional scars that they carry from their past. Amari bears a scar on her back from her childhood when her father forced her and Inan to fight with swords. When she refused, he cut her back, leaving her with a slash across it. Now, she thinks often of the scar when she remembers her father’s commands to “strike” and “fight” (397), wanting to prove to him that she is now ready to fight, even if it means fighting her brother. For her, these scars represent the trauma that her father has inflicted on her, while also showing her belief that violence makes her stronger.

Zélie also has scars across her body, the biggest one of which is the word “maggot” written across her back, carved there by King Saran in the previous novel. Early in the sequel, Amari notes how Zélie hides her scars from fighting “with shame” (11). However, in front of the elders, Zélie removes her shirt and shows her scar to everyone for the first time, no longer hiding them in shame but instead displaying them as a marker of her strength and everything she has been through. For Zélie, her scars represent the sacrifices she has made and the losses she has endured. By the end of the novel, she recognizes that everyone she lost died for the freedom of the maji—and she will celebrate their deaths and the strength that that knowledge gives her, rather than grieving for them.

“Duty Before Self”

One motif throughout the text is Inan’s repetition of the phrase “[d]uty before self” (275). The phrase originated in the first novel of the series as something that Inan’s father said to him repeatedly throughout his childhood to prepare him to become king. In this novel, Inan continues to repeat the phrase to himself as he questions his mother’s actions and his own.

On the surface, the phrase is meant to remind Inan that his position as king is more important than anything that would affect him personally, such as his family and relationships. This directly reflects the theme of Love Versus Duty, as it has become engrained in Inan to put his duty as king over love. Even after his father’s death, and his acknowledgement that his father had a lot of flaws as king, the phrase continues to infiltrate Inan’s thoughts. Additionally, the phrase also represents the way that the monarchy has tried to use any means necessary to keep hold of the throne, including massacring maji. In the royal family’s eyes, one life or even a group of lives—and one’s emotional reaction to those lives—means little when it comes to protecting the power they have on the throne.

At the end of the text, however, as Inan poisons his mother, he comes to the realization that, at the very least, the duty one has on the throne is reflective of who they are as a person. His father and mother both chose to rule brutally, putting aside any empathy and instead perpetuating The Cyclical Nature of Violence. Inan, however, realizes that the system is too flawed and destroys the monarchy—ironically, the choice that truly puts his duty as the ruler of all people first.